The present invention relates to a timepiece, and more particularly to a time equipment which can provide precise and easy read time observation of hours, minutes, seconds, day or night, a.m. or p.m., and time period in form of morning, afternoon, evening, or night at one time, so that it can be equipped with a time zone means for simultaneously indicating the time for at least two time zones, and/or be equipped with an alarm mechanism for enabling more than one alarm time setting in 24 hours.
A conventional timepiece, constructed in the form of a watch or a clock, comprises a movement, a dial, an hour indicating hand, a minute indicating hand, a second indicating hand, a time setting mechanism for the hands, and a driving means. The indicating hands are mounted for rotating above the dial. The driving means connects the indicating hands to the movement for rotating the hands so as to indicate the time over 12 hours.
Since the dial of the conventional time piece as described above has only numerals of 1 to 12 equally spaced apart with each other, inscribed on the periphery thereof, one can not determine that the indicated time is a day time or a night time simply from the 12-hour dial of the timepiece. For example, if the indicated time on the 12-hour dial is seven-thirty o'clock, one cannot determine that it is 7:30 am or 7:30 pm without a further observation of the outdoor circumstances. Thus, for people in an indoor area, such as a surgery doctor in a surgical room, a tourist in a casino, an engineer in subway, a worker in an air conditioning factory, or a traveler in an airplane, the conventional 12-hour timepiece is unable to act as a true time teller. It is impossible to determine the day time or night time according to such common timepiece.
A specified 24-hour timepiece can partially solve the above problem, which comprises a dial having numerals from 1 to 24 inscribed on the periphery thereof. The movement of the 24-hour timepiece is designed to drive the hour indicating hand rotating just one revolution for 24 hours. People in an indoor surrounding can roughly determine the indicated time of 6 to 18 o'clock as day time and 19 to 5 o'clock as night time. This kind of 24-hour timepiece is particularly useful in military time indicating purpose because it can tell the exact time within 24 hours. Therefore, soldiers have to receive special training to accustom to the sense of time representing by the numerals of 13 to 24 o'clock.
In fact, since the first timepiece invented, it was a 12-hour timepiece. People were used to read the time through numerals 1 to 12. The sense of time is a picture in mind that is respective to accustom human activities at certain designated time. For example, one should wake up at 7:00 am (in early morning), the outdoor weather should be hotter at about 3:00 pm (in the afternoon), one will feel hungry for dinner at 8:00 pm (in the evening), and one will feel tired and sleepy at 10:00 pm (at night). In the other word, people can have immediately response respective to 1 o'clock to 12 o'clock. However, it really bothers people when one read the time indicated by a numeral larger than 12, such as 15, 17, 19 or 22 o'clock, because, generally, people can not picture the sense of time respective to a numeral larger than 12 immediately. It is so troublesome for one to compute the read numerals, 13 to 24, to the accustomed time numerals, 1 to 12, by deducting the numeral larger than 12 by 12. It is the reason that why the 24-hour timepiece is not popular up to now. Nowadays, almost all the timepieces on sale in market are still the 12-hour timepieces. Besides, the conventional 24-hour timepiece still cannot indicate the conditions of time, such as the morning period, afternoon period, evening period, and night period in one day. It is highly desirable in today's market and daily life to have a timepiece that is able to observe the exact time with illustrating the day or night time period as morning, afternoon, evening or night at one time.
Moreover, some timepieces also design for simultaneously indicating the times of at least two time zones, such as the structure disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,323,363, so as to provide convenience for travelers who always travel between different cities. However, the conventional timepiece with simultaneous time display for various time zones comprises very complicated construction which increases the difficulties of manufacture and the manufacturing cost.
For alarm timepiece in prior art, it comprises an alarm generating device which can only preset one predetermined time within 12 hours. If one presets an alarm dock to provide an alarm signal at a predetermined time, for example 8 o'clock, the alarm generating device will alarm both at 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., twice a day in which one of the alarm signals is undesirable that may cause various inconveniences to the users.
In many circumstances, more than one alarm signals for reminding the user of predetermined time are required in one day. It is so troublesome that people have to set the alarm as many times as the number of alarm signals needed.